Me Likey

Spotted by one of my daughters: A devilishly good shake, at the cafe at the Museum of Science and Industry, Chicago

So it’s Christmas again, and as always I find myself slightly depressed by the emphasis everywhere on Christmas commerce. The other day, however, while slicing a tomato with a particularly effective knife, I found myself musing about products that I’ve been given, or bought, or otherwise encountered over the years that have won my admiration. So I thought I’d present a few here, as a kind of retroactive Christmas list.

Cutco 5-inch Trimming Knife Model 1721

My Cutco trimmer

This knife came into my home in the early 1990s, when I and my then young family were living in Baltimore. One afternoon a young man came to the door selling knives on behalf of Cutco, a company that until then I had never heard of. Ordinarily my inclination is to shoo all door-people away without a hearing, but this guy seemed earnest and was dressed in a manner that vaguely evoked the apparel of a Mormon missionary. So, we invited him in. Actually, to be precise, my wife invited him in. All you fans of The Wire and The Corner and Homicide, all set in Baltimore, will wonder at the idea of a Baltimore family inviting a knife seller into their home. He proposed a demonstration. He pulled out a Model 1721 Trimmer with a five-inch serrated blade, and proceeded to use it to cut a penny in half. This was surprisingly persuasive, so we bought one, and we’ve had it ever since. Twenty-plus years later it remains our favorite close-duty knife, and shows little sign of wear and remains sharp. I have never myself tried to cut a penny with it, however, though certainly that is the kind of thing I ordinarily would be inclined to do, since I have been known in recent years to blow up eggs in microwave ovens and to drive my car repeatedly over a can of shaving cream in order to learn what kind of mechanism resided within. I draw the line, however, at cutting Abe Lincoln’s face in half.  

Casio LC-827 Electronic Calculator

Still going, after decades

You can’t buy these anymore, and frankly, that’s a shame. My little Casio is simple and compact, and has operated flawlessly for about forty years. It couldn’t calculate graphing coordinates or plot the course of a scraft in the way my daughter’s Texas Instruments “scientific” calculator can, but it works great for bills and percentages and calculating how many books I would have to sell to buy the car that John Steed drove in the TV series The Avengers. I’ve had this calculator for decades. I can’t remember exactly when I got it, but I do remember it was a gift from my mother, most likely a stocking stuffer. Good lord, but the thing has stamina. It’s kept going for forty years. What in heaven’s name powers it?

Cuisinart Food Processor Model DLC-10E

A gift for Jet Blue

My sisters and I got this for my mother soon after Cuisinart introduced the thing to America in 1973 and thereby revolutionized certain facets of cooking and baking. Julia Child was an early adopter. This particular processor came into my life after my mother’s death, when we cleaned out the family homestead to get it ready for sale. The machine still works beautifully, although the plastic “work bowl” attachment has begun shedding bits of plastic. But that motor—I swear, it could tow a jetliner off the tarmac (and this might be something Jet Blue ought to consider looking into). There is something so satisfying about hitting the “Pulse” button, and watching whatever is inside the plastic container disintegrate, although just this past Thanksgiving we inadvertently wound up using the metal blade to puree the plastic dough blade, which someone had placed within for storage. The new Cuisinart processors are fine, I’m sure, but they look and feel cheap in comparison. If you launched my old one from a catapult you could take out your neighbor’s car.

The Bic “Crystal” Pen

And, they're chewable

It is hard to decide whether to classify this product as a writing implement or a food, because as all Bic Crystal afficionados know, the removable black top is a delight to chew. I own many pens, mostly accumulated during book-signings when invariably I walk off with one or more bookstore pens, but the only pen I use in my writing life is the Bic Crystal medium point, with black ink. The Crystal is the pen equivalent of the girl your mother always wanted you to marry. It even has the same name. With a Crystal you always know where you stand—you can see the ink level through the clear plastic shaft. And the company’s slogan happens to be dead-on correct, “Writes first time, every time.” You buy them by the bag-full, but they can be hard to find, since apparently there’s a lot more profit in pens like the Uni-Ball Vision Elite and the Pilot G-2. So I always keep an eye out, and when I spot a package dangling from a hook, I grab it. I also pay for it.  

Revere Ware pots

My "vintage" Revere pots

These, too, I inherited after my mother’s death. You’ve probably got one or two, or far more, of these in your home right now—shiny steel tops, red-gold copper bottoms, and shiny smooth black handles. They were sold initially with a twenty-five-year guarantee. Mine are at least fifty years old—I think. All I know is that there’s been at least one Revere Ware pot in every apartment, house, even tent I’ve ever occupied. We even have a Revere Ware coffee pot, the kind that percolates, and every half-decade or so we dust it off thinking okay, now we’re going to make some real coffee. You can drop these pots, heat them until their bottoms glow, encrust their interiors with charred milk, and they keep coming back for more—and if you shine up those bottoms with a copper cleaner, they gleam. If you check online, you’ll find that a small industry has grown up to supply things like handle screws, even complete handle assemblies, and sets of parts to replace that little steel dangly thing at the end. And by the way, I know from experience that the tops to the saucepans make terrific toys for toddlers.

Le Creuset 11-inch crepe pan Model 0170

I bought this crepe pan mainly so that my youngest daughter, an expert baker, could make crepes, but I quickly discovered that it is a superb tool for making omelets. Now, in fact, on most Sunday mornings you will hear me exclaim at some point, “Oh god I love this pan.” Until it came into my life, I rarely made omelets, because my omelets invariably came out of the skillet looking like something that tried to crawl across a highway at rush hour. This pan, with its truly non-stick coating and low rim, yields perfect omelets. And yes it’s good for crepes too.

12.5-inch cast-iron skillet

I’ve had my big cast-iron skillet for thirty years. It is easily one of the most cost-effective investments I’ve ever made—I bought it at a yard sale for 25 cents. What I love most about it is that it lets me cook big, and it lets me cook hot. Surface-of-Mars hot. You can sear a steak at a million degrees, and the skillet will forgive you. Just fill it with water and leave it in the sink overnight, and by morning all gunk and char is easily removed. I have no idea who made mine, but the Lodge Manufacturing Company makes some very nice equivalents, like the 9-inch skillet that my middle-daughter got me for a past Christmas. Lodge also makes a cast-iron skillet in the shape of a guitar.  

 “Peel Away” apple peeler and corer

Finally, I salute my “Peel Away” apple peeler. I love apple pie, but I despise peeling and coring apples by hand, and as a consequence I have in past years made few apple pies, my go-to pie being pumpkin (from the original Silver Palate cookbook, not the one that caused the authors to start bitching at each other and go their separate ways). My peeler has made apple pie almost easy, with the added benefit of appealing (pause, please—that’s a pun) to the little boy in me. It’s a wonderful contraption, with springs and threaded rods and an adjustable blade and a suction bottom that actually works and holds the apparatus tightly to the counter. I do wish I’d had one of these when I was a boy. I’m certain I would have tried using the suction qualities to try climbing up the exterior glass of my childhood home.  Sadly the U.S. has renounced torture, because these peelers could certainly have a secondary use in the war against terror, a use moreover that could be readily disavowed. “What torture? We were making pie.”    

Based on a Spanish Inquisition patent